Dec 3 - 9

Monday, December 3 - The floor is done! And I LOVE IT!!! It is so hard to pick out the flooring that will cover an entire basement just based off of one or two small pieces in a showroom. Now that it is in and done, I couldn't be more pleased with the one we chose. Yay!

Tuesday, December 4 - Happy birthday to the best sister in the world! I don't know how I lucked out to not only have such a wonderful sister but also best friend. Love you Jen! Tonight, our family got the Christmas tree up and decorated. The goal was not to break any ornaments. But then Ricki helped. So we didn't reach our goal. :) I love these fun memories though!

Wednesday, December 5 - Oh these boots. They have caused much drama and contention with my eldest daughter. Kendra came home from school on Monday complaining that her feet are always freezing because none of her shoes are waterproof and they get wet at recess. *Trying* to be a good mom, I went on KSL and found these darling boots, perfect condition, for $20. We went last night, before decorating the tree, met the guy in Draper and bought them. She wore them to school today and came home saying she doesn't want them anymore. What? Why? Because of the fur. It's too fluffy. Seriously?!?! They are the cutest boots ever! No longer *trying* to be a good mom, I told her that they are hers, they are new, and they are not going anywhere so she may as well get used to wearing them! Otherwise, she only has herself to blame for wet feet!

Thursday, December 6 - Simon bought this drone a year or so ago thinking that he would love having it. While he did use it and enjoyed flying it, he didn't get as much use out of it as he thought he would. Tonight, he finally made the decision to put it on KSL and stick with the smaller version his friend gave him for helping with electrical work in his basement. It only took 2 days before someone snagged this deal. Goodbye, our first drone!

Friday, December 7 - The quartz slab for our hearth came in today so Simon went on his lunch break to get it. Just another step in the process.

Saturday, December 8 - Simon had time today to get our hearth top on! Yay!!!!

Sunday, December 9 - Happy birthday Grandpa Jim! We love our grandpa and are so happy to get to celebrate his special day with him at Sunday dinner!

Nov 26 - Dec 2

Monday, November 26 - Ricki has no trouble finding friends wherever she goes! She met this little girl at bowling and they ended up playing the entire time! It was super cute tonight, Kendra was teaching Savy how to play a song on the piano. I recorded some of it too but they are super cute friends!

Tuesday, November 27 - I asked Grandma Sharon if she would be willing to teach me how to make her amazing gift bows. Naturally, we met at Chick-Fil-A first for lunch then went to her house for bow-making. I did go to Sam's club to buy some ribbon but I only got one so I figured all of my bows this year would look exactly the same. To my surprise, I was super happy when I got home and found 3 spools of ribbon I had bought last year! Yay! Let the gift wrapping and bow-making begin!

Wednesday, November 28 - We did an end of the year slideshow for Young Women's tonight. It was cute to watch the girls react to their own pictures on the video and to recall all of the fun things we did throughout the year! Afterward, we had an auxiliary training meeting at the church. When we came out, it was foggy but the temple in the horizon was lit up like a torch against the sky. It was beautiful! 

Thursday, November 29 - Simon went on an overnight retreat to Sundace for work. It was pretty exciting as they got over a foot of snow overnight and experienced some power outages because of it! Luckily, they were able to dig their cars out and get home safely.

Friday, November 30 - Mom's and Muffins!! I love going to these fun school events with my kiddos. And luckily, Nick had late-start this morning so I didn't even have Ricki in tow!

Saturday, December 1 - Simon and Dave worked all day and got the flooring DONE! Yay!!! That was a big project to get done! They even got done in enough time for our ward "Hawaiian Luau" Christmas party!

Sunday, December 2 - We celebrated tonight!! First, we celebrated Jenni and Katie's birthdays. Then, after gifts and dessert, we celebrated Christmas tradition by decorating a gingerbread house. I love all of these kiddos (and Ricki who chose not to get in the kid photo)!

Nov 19 - 25

Monday, November 19 - We had our Thanksgiving celebration at bowling today. They brought 7 turkeys and the first 5 people to get a strike won a turkey (then they had another game for the other two). I happened to get the second turkey! So cool! After bowling, Katie and dad met up with us at Chili's for lunch. Jake was with us because he wasn't feeling well this morning. He was fine at bowling though. It was a super fun day!

Tuesday, November 20 - How cute are these little preschool Native American's? They learned all about the pilgrims and the Indians in preparation for Thanksgiving this week. :) 

Wednesday, November 21 - Since it's almost time to get our Christmas cards out, I quickly scheduled a family picture session at FotoFly. Then, I got to take on the super fun task of picking out picture clothes. Lucky me!

Thursday, November 22 - Happy Thanksgiving! I am so thankful for our family, friends, and those that are around us. We had a great day celebrating with the Pearson clan!

Friday, November 23 - Yay for basement flooring! We went to Floor & Decor tonight to finally pick up our flooring. We ordered it a few weeks ago and have just been waiting for it to come in. I'll have you know, Simon's knee was bothering him so Nick & I carried down every last box of this flooring! It wasn't an easy task but we got it done! :) 

Saturday, November 24 - Simon has been working non-stop to try to get the floor level enough to lay the flooring. He's ground down the cement in high spots, poured self-leveling, and even bought a special tool to accomplish this. He's finally ready to start the flooring! Hooray!!! That brown mat down the hallway is the underlay and those are the official first two pieces of flooring laid!

Sunday, November 25 - Our poor freezing old woman doggy! Since her last haircut, she just shivers anytime she goes outside then comes back in. Tonight, Simon put this blanket on the ground and wrapped her up and she's stayed like this for hours! Poor thing. It's good to get pictures of her now because we don't know how much longer she'll be with us. 

Nov 12 - 18

Monday, November 12 - Ricki: "Mom, will you put my cooking stuff on me?" Me: "Sure!" Ricki: "Now take a picture cuz it's cute." Me: "Haha! Okay!"

Tuesday, November 13 - Simon has been working so hard to get the basement done. The lighting is all done as well as the painting! Next up, flooring!

Wednesday, November 14 - We had  fun Young Men/Young Women activity tonight. Members of our ward dressed up in "disguise" and went shopping in different stores in the new Mountain View Village shopping center. The kids all had clues and had to figure out which store they were in as well as find them in their costumes. We called it the "Where's Waldo" activity. I kept laughing that Brother Keel looked like Polly Shore in "Son-In-Law" so I had to pull up this picture and show the girls. They got a kick out of it! Fun night!!

Thursday, November 15 - In preparation for some upcoming *undisclosed* Christmas gifts, I bought myself a power tool! I have always wanted a hand-sander so I took Ricki to Home Depot this afternoon and bought this! Can't wait to get started on my fun projects!

Friday, November 16 - This was a fun day full of friends! Jenni is out of town so she asked if I could watch Eliza for the day. This girl is seriously so quiet and so sweet, it was a pleasure to watch her! She kept Ricki entertained all day!! Then tonight, because all of our hubbies were at the camp out with our boys, we took the rest of the kids and headed to Arctic Circle for food, ice cream, play, and conversation. It was a great way to end a super great day!

Saturday, November 17 - Jen Moon sent me this picture of the boys sitting around the campfire at their overnighter. I still can't believe that they go camping in the middle of winter in Utah! If you want to know my idea of totally miserable, here is a picture of it! At least it didn't snow on them!

Sunday, November 18 - I ordered this sweater online after a friend of mine wore it to card exchange a week or so ago. She told me that I would love it and guess what? I do! It arrived on my doorstep yesterday, I tried it on today, and I plan to wear it tomorrow. Haha! :) 

Nov 5 - 11

Monday, November 5 - After bowling this morning, mom and I went to Ikea for lunch and to look at their cube storage systems. Mom has been asking me to help her organize her scrapbook room/office and I think Ikea can help. We didn't purchase anything but just looked at the options of what we could maybe do.

Tuesday, November 6 - Mom's friend and vinyl lady, Dawni, has an amazing craft room so when I was over helping mom in her office again, she called Dawni and asked if I could come see it. It ended up being way successful because at Presidency Meeting on Sunday, our girls decided to do the theme "Wizard of Oz" for New Beginnings in February. Jackpot, Dawni has everything we could ever need to pull it off! Bonus, she said I can borrow all of her stuff to do it! I couldn't wait to get home and tell Tammy everything I had discovered over there!

Wednesday, November 7 - We chose a 70's theme for our Young Women in Excellence night. The theme for the year was "Peace in Christ" so they took the "peace" part of that and ran with it! This may have been one of our most successful nights so far! We started out playing Book of Mormon Pictionary, watched a video of the girls (they each submitted a 20-30 minute video of themselves and Tammy compiled it all into one), handed out Personal Progress awards, then Bishop gave a short message. After the program, Andrea and I were in charge of salt and cinnamon/sugar pretzels and it all went very well! I love my calling!!!

Thursday, November 8 - Mom texted me this picture and said that our little Kam Kam broke his leg yesterday! He and Katie were going down a slide together and his leg got caught underneath her and broke his leg. :( The worst part is that they have to keep it immobilized, meaning he can't walk on it at all until they get the cast on Monday. Poor little guy! 

Friday, November 9 - This was not Zack's best day ever. :( He had to get a lower tooth pulled to allow space for his permanent teeth to come in. He has never been numbed before so he was super unhappy when the numbness began to wear off. He handled it all like a champ though and once the numbness was gone, he was his normal happy self!

Saturday, November 10 - Happy birthday Dave! It's becoming an annual tradition that on Dave's birthday, we all go out to dinner. I'm lame and only got pictures of sticking cute Finn and Ruby but you can see Dave's shoulder in Rube's picture. :) 

Sunday, November 11 - We are having such a hard time picking colors for the basement! We did finally agree on the darker floor but now, we're in debate on the hearth color. I like the dark, he likes the light. White on white on white is super popular right now, for some reason, so I guess we decided on the white. However, I think the charcoal would have made it feel more warm and cozy down by the fireplace. I hope this all turns out well. It is scary when you're picking huge amounts of colors based on a teeny tiny little sample!